[leftyted]

Ironically, the idea you're pushing, something like "this doesn't really matter, the important thing is the government giving people money, the more the better, who even cares if they're American," precisely represents the best objections to the welfare state. Which are its shoddiness, its lack of administrative rigor, and so on. These objections raise the question: can a welfare state be effective if it's administered so poorly? If the American government is sending money to Swedes, can we trust it to send money to "people who need it"?

Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens? If not, perhaps that partly explains why the Swedes are more comfortable with an expansive welfare state than Americans.

[MauranKilom]

> the idea you're pushing, something like "this doesn't really matter, the important thing is the government giving people money, the more the better, who even cares if they're American,"

I'm almost unsure how to reply because you seem to ignore the central point of the comment you're replying to. Your characterization omits the most salient point: That it had to be done fast. I don't see how the tradeoffs in emergency distribution of funds are in any way indicative of whether you can trust welfare states to be administered properly or not. The comment was precisely about "lack of administrative rigor" being warranted in favor of preventing greater harm.

> Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens? If not, perhaps that partly explains why the Swedes are more comfortable with an expansive welfare state than Americans.

I don't understand how this point relates to the general value of welfare systems that you are discussing. Are you saying an American welfare system has to be inherently less reliable? Or that there are more Americans than Swedes so statistically Sweden will receive more accidental checks from America than the reverse? Could you elaborate?

[mumblemumble]

> I'm almost unsure how to reply because you seem to ignore the central point of the comment you're replying to. Your characterization omits the most salient point: That it had to be done fast.

It had to be done fast, and it had to be handled by a department that's chronically underfunded due to decades of underfunding fueled by all the political hand-wringing for which terms like "welfare state" have become watchwords.

One could mount an argument that that's irrelevant, the real problem is that the IRS is being asked to do something like this in the first place, and there would otherwise be no need to have an organization that's well-funded and competent enough to handle things like this quickly and accurately. I personally find those sorts of arguments specious, though, by virtue of being anti-democratic. This is not Plato's Republic, and we do not get to rely on infallible philosopher kings to make our decisions. As long as there is a plurality of opinions, and as long as opinions change over time, there will always be this sort of tug-of-war and sloppiness as the policy decisions being made now interact poorly with the policy decisions that were being made at other times.

Or perhaps I should say ademocratic? It's arguably sensical to think, "Everything would work great if it just went my way," but it's best to relegate that sentiment to the world of political thought experiments. Taking it as an unstated major premise in an actual political discussion about current policy decisions in a functioning democracy is painfully impractical. It's just like code: If you try to deal with a messy legacy system by closing your eyes and blithely steamrollering along with your own clean, modern code, the end result will not be more clean and modern. It will just be an even bigger mess.

[leftyted]

Yes, the parent comment was about "lack of administrative rigor". The cheerful acceptance of that situation was the topic of my post.

There is no reason why someone can't support the welfare state and also demand efficiency. That demand represents an ideal; there will always be errors, but the insistence that all errors are unavoidable and that (as the parent suggested) we shouldn't even talk about them is extremely irritating. It provides the enemies of the welfare state with the best possible arguments ("you don't even care if the money is going to people who need it").

[rcxdude]

It's more that such a focus on 'efficiency' actually in practice comes from people who either place an extremely high moral cost on cheats or mistakes (far greater than the actual monetary cost of such issues), or from (more cynically) those opposed to the goals of such institutions in the first place (i.e. they believe the welfare itself is wrong and even those allowed under the rules do not deserve it). This is born out in the reactions that such critics tend to impose on the system, i.e. imposing draconian and expensive checks on those who seek it, both rejecting or impeding legitimate claiments while also not demonstably reducing costs (any savings due to catching fraud or even just rejecting those who need it being swallowed up by the cost of the checks).

See the UK government's current (over the last 10 years) approach to welfare. Lots of money spent on checks which are run almost seemingly malicously incompetently, the vast majority of rejections not being upheld when they go to court (even more expensive), assuming the claiment hasn't died by then (as many have due to extreme poverty).

It's the kind of argument which carries a lot of emotional weight (everyone hates a cheater) but it's really hard to believe is being taken in good faith from a rational, cost-reduction perspective.

[Pfhreak]

> Which are its shoddiness:

I mean, they sent what, $34m overseas erroneously of $2T?

Doing some quick napkin math, for every $1,000,000 spent, $10 accidentally went overseas?

Why does this seem poor to you? That seems like less than a rounding error in a rounding error....

[morelisp]

> I mean, they sent what, $34m overseas erroneously of $2T?

Far less. That $34m included disbursement to non-resident US citizens. Considerably more than 28,333 US citizens live overseas. I have had to file tax returns for 10 years despite not living in the US and having no US income, you bet your ass I cashed that check.

[Pfhreak]

Sure. So it's an order of magnitude less? Two? That's $1 in a $1M? $1 in $10M?

Objecting to social programs because they have minuscule errors drives me up the wall.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Objecting to social programs because they have minuscule errors drives me up the wall.

It makes sense if you consider weak people to be exploitable material for powerful interests. Social programs interfere with that dynamic - ergo the endless propaganda and demonetization of compassion.

[leftyted]

I should have said "supposed shoddiness".

My point was not that the welfare state is shoddy but that, if you support the welfare state, mistakes like this should bother you more, not less.

[Pfhreak]

> if you support the welfare state, mistakes like this should bother you more, not less.

Why? I support social programs, I accept some inefficiencies and waste.

In general I think small waste is not worth the energy to be concerned about if the benefit is huge.

That said, I think means testing is a waste of everyone's time. Just provide the benefits to everyone -- it simplifies the process of providing the benefit.

[leftyted]

Because, as I said in my original post, "[shoddiness, etc] represents the best objections to the welfare state".

In other words, blithe dismissals like "I accept some inefficienies and waste" provide the other side with the best possible ammunition against the idea of a welfare state.

It's laughable to see the number of people here who, straight-faced, say nonsense like "Nitpicking efficiency is for the capitalists".

[metabagel]

If you're looking for government waste and inefficiency, you'd be better off looking at military spending. That's where a lot of the low-hanging fruit is.

[lazyasciiart]

False. If you support effective government, welfare state or not, learning of this mistake should be considered a sign that they may have hit the right balance between spending on implementation and spending on platinum grade superpowered mistake detectors. One big obstacle to a welfare state is the unhinged obsession with not giving anyone anything they don’t deserve, which leads to idiotic programs that spend more money drug testing applicants than helping them.

[morelisp]

> if you support the welfare state, mistakes like this should bother you more, not less.

This doesn't follow at all.

As long as the policies are progressive (in the economic sense) and enough money gets to those who need it, why should small inefficiencies bother me? Nitpicking efficiency is for the capitalists.

[Sohcahtoa82]

As others have pointed out, the cost of the mistakes is a rounding error.

If you spend $100M to reduce waste by $34M, then did you actually reduce waste?

[llbeansandrice]

> shoddiness of the welfare state

It works out to $10 erroneous dollars for every $1,000,000. That's 99.999% accuracy and that doesn't sound shoddy to me at all.

[morelisp]

> Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens?

Generally, yes, if they worked for some time in Sweden. There is probably a non-zero error rate associated with that too. It's not like the gov't is sending checks to random Swedes - they were sent based on available sufficient tax criteria not originally intended to be used for entitlement distribution.

I do suspect most countries wouldn't have a problem on the scale the US might because a) they have larger, simpler entitlement programs (qualifications tend to be based on a a small number of straightforward residency classes), and b) they do not generally process any tax paperwork from non-residents. It is the US's stinginess and paradoxical fear of inefficiency that hurts it here.

[Mediterraneo10]

In the Nordic countries, people often know personally someone who has managed to live on the dole for years and years in spite of being totally able-bodied and capable of working; the person would simply prefer to spend their lives playing video games or toking or whatever. That is rather unfair and that person might be called a leech, but still few would want to rock the boat and end the welfare state just to eliminate those cases. So, indeed, in the Nordic countries people are prepared to accept some fraud and mismanagement to keep the overall system going.

[AaronM]

I have to agree here, having family on welfare in the U.S. Try living like that sometime, its terrible. You will have to live in a terrible neighborhood, with not enough money to survive on without resorting to taking handouts from charities like foodbanks. If someone wants to scam the system and live like that their entire lives let them, if that means that people using it to get back on their feet have a safety net.

[BoorishBears]

I think the real irony here is that the best rebuttal to your point is the exact comment that you replied to.

The amount in question is less than 0.0011%. Literally a thousandth of a precent.

Meanwhile the result was keeping hundreds of millions afloat of Americans (at least until we decided to abandon them again for the sake of politics)

Besides, since when is a leaner government protection against an incompetent government? We're literally watching thousands of Americans die as proof this theory of "the less my government does the less it can do wrong" is completely nonsensical

[gen3]

I think it’s important to remember that one of the goals during this process was speed. The government could surly be more accurate in their distribution of the 1,200$, but it would come at the expense of time. Getting the stimulus check in 2021 would be worth way less.

[forinti]

One error in 10 thousand is not shoddy at all. I bet it would cost more than $1200 eliminate each of those errors.

[eli]

I don't agree that the effort was shoddy and I don't think any errors made in standing up a new government program in a matter of weeks, with a mandate to move as quickly as possible, and in the middle of a pandemic say anything useful about the concept of welfare in general